


The Intolerable Acts

by ignipes



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-05
Updated: 2006-09-05
Packaged: 2017-10-07 19:50:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignipes/pseuds/ignipes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's something nasty in the school basement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Intolerable Acts

Miss Calder called Sam up to her desk after the second period bell rang.

"I really enjoyed reading your essay, Sam," she said.

He nodded uncertainly, looking down at his shoes, and muttered, "Thank you, ma'am." Behind him, he could hear Bryan and Kendall joking in the classroom doorway, jostling the students filing in for the next class. He hoped they couldn't hear what Miss Calder was saying, or else he'd never hear the end of it.

"It's a very interesting idea," she went on. "I would like to talk to you about it, if that's okay."

"You would?" he blurted, looking up at Miss Calder. His surprise changed quickly to worry. Teachers never wanted to talk to him unless he'd done something wrong.

She smiled serenely. Her hands were folded on a hand-written assignment he recognized as his own. He could see red words marked on the page, but he couldn't see the grade. "I would," she replied. "Don't look so worried. It's nothing bad. Can you stop by for a few minutes after school today? After the assembly," she added, her smile fading and her voice falling to a subdued murmur. That's how all the teachers were talking about it, saying _the assembly_ like they would say _the funeral_.

Sam hesitated. Dean was picking him up after school, and he would be mortified if he was so late that Dean came into the school looking for him.

"It will only take a few minutes," Miss Calder said, her gentle smile returning.

Well, Dean could wait a few minutes. He probably wouldn't even notice. "Okay," Sam agreed, hurrying away and hoping his friends didn't notice the blush burning his face.

~

Every boy in the seventh grade had a crush on Miss Calder. She had long, dark, silky hair and she wore jeans and colorful shirts, pink lip gloss and big hoop earrings. Sam had heard some of the other teachers tut-tutting about Miss Calder, old Mrs. Wilcox and Mr. Pickering with the chalk-dusted pants saying that they didn't agree with her relaxed teaching techniques, but all the kids agreed that she was much better than Mrs. Appleby who had retired last year. She taught social studies and she made them read more than any other teacher, but she never got angry at the class when they joked around and got a little rowdy on Fridays.

There wasn't much joking around at the last period assembly. Miss Calder and some of the other teachers were sitting up on the stage in the middle school auditorium, their hands folded on their laps and their expressions solemn.

The principal, Mr. Tucker, was talking into the microphone. He pretended not to notice every time it squealed and interrupted his words, eliciting a ripple of hushed giggles from the audience. The police are investigating, he was saying. If you have any information, even if you think it's unimportant, the police want to know. Mr. and Mrs. Ferguson want your help. Mr. and Mrs. Reese want your help. Adam and Melissa need your help. The microphone squealed again on the last _help_, but that time nobody laughed.

Kendall leaned over and whispered in Sam's ear, "My dad said they arrested Adam's uncle last night." Kendall's dad was a guard at the county courthouse.

Sam looked at him in surprise. "Really?"

"Yeah. Dad said Adam's parents didn't even know he was in town, but then he showed up at some motel and the cops arrested him." Kendall was talking quickly, his voice low, and Bryan was leaning over Sam to listen too. "They think he already killed Adam and maybe Melissa too and hid the bodies somewhere, but he won't tell them where."

Bryan exhaled. "Shit. How come Mr. Tucker doesn't know?"

Kendall rolled his eyes. "He does know, dumbass. He's just not telling us. Probably trying to protect us or some shit."

"That's stupid," Bryan said.

"Yeah," Sam agreed, though he wasn't so sure Mr. Tucker wasn't right. If all the kids in school thought that whoever had taken Adam and Melissa was in jail, they might not tell the cops anything they knew. It was like Pastor Jim always said: if people think they already have all the answers, they stop looking for anything more.

Not that the disappearances were really their kind of thing. Caleb thought it was just a run-of-the-mill sicko, and Dad often said that he trusted Caleb's instincts as well as his own. Dad had been on the road for a few weeks, but over the phone he didn't seem worried, either; he just cautioned Sam to be careful and not walk home alone and to what Caleb and Dean said.

And it was Adam's uncle -- well, it was awful, but that sort of thing happened all the time without the help of spirits or monsters.

Mr. Tucker was done talking, and the students began to file out of the auditorium. Sam hurried back to his locker to get the books he needed for homework, then went to check the parking lot in front of the school. The high school got out an hour earlier than the middle school, but he didn't see the Impala waiting by the curb, so he went straight to Miss Calder's classroom.

She wasn't back from the assembly yet. Sam waited awkwardly at the front of the room, not sure if he should sit down. The blackboard was still covered with Miss Calder's big, curly handwriting from her last class: notes about the Boston Tea Party and Paul Revere, the Battle of Lexington and the Declaration of Independence.

Sam knew most of it already; he'd read _Johnny Tremain_ at his last school and had to write a book report about it, looking up all the names and dates and making Dean listen to him while he read out loud -- over and over again, with gory, dramatic relish -- the page on which the poor guy got his hand toasted in molten silver. Dean had just rolled his eyes and told Sam to shut up and leave him alone, but Sam noticed that he was trying not to smile the next time they helped Dad make silver bullets.

Sam's essay wasn't on Miss Calder's desk anymore. There were some papers from her sixth period class, but he didn't know any of the kids so he wasn't interested enough to peek at the grades. Unlike most teachers, Miss Calder didn't have very much stuff on her desk, just a calendar, a wooden plaque with her name, a paperweight in the shape of an apple and a pencil holder decorated with bright yellow rulers.

It must be because she's a new teacher, Sam thought. There were no pictures, no Post-It notes, no clutter.

The classroom door opened, and Sam jumped back from the desk guiltily.

"Hi, Sam," Miss Calder said. She was smiling, but it was a sad smile. "Sorry I kept you waiting."

"It's okay," he said, adjusting his backpack on his shoulder and stepping aside awkwardly to let her get to her chair.

"It's such a terrible thing that's happened," she went on, shaking her head as she sat down. "Do you know Adam and Melissa well?"

Sam shook his head. He knew both of them by sight, but he didn't think he'd ever spoken to them.

"I can't even imagine what their parents are going through," Miss Calder said. Then her expression brightened, and she pulled open one of her desk drawers, shuffled through some papers until she found Sam's essay. "But we're not here to talk about that. I just wanted to tell you how impressed I was by your essay, Sam. I know teachers aren't supposed to talk about their favorites, but yours was definitely the best one turned in."

Sam felt a hot blush creeping up on his face. He looked down quickly, scuffing his shoe on the linoleum floor. "Thanks."

"I was wondering, where did you get the idea? The assignment was to pick a topic about the Revolution--" She stopped abruptly, smiling as she saw the panicked expression on his face. "Don't worry, Sam. You followed the assignment just fine. I'm just curious why you decided to write about what caused the war rather than the war itself."

Sam bit his lip, thinking. It had been Caleb's idea, actually. Caleb knew a lot about American history, far more than an illegal gun dealer had any reason to know, and once you got him started talking about it he never stopped. Sam wasn't convinced that everything Caleb claimed to know was true -- like Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys being hunters just like Caleb and Dad, or the hideouts along the Underground Railroad being protected by spirits of murdered slaves -- but he was always willing to help Sam with his homework.

He thought about what Caleb had said, and answered Miss Calder, "I just thought... well, the fighting and stuff was important but I thought it was more important... what made them, you know, fight. In the first place."

Miss Calder looked at him steadily. "Very true, Sam. That's a very smart way of looking at it. It's something that many people tend to forget about history: there were reasons for everything."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Even the most terrible things," Miss Calder went on, turning away from Sam to stare out the window, "the battles and wars, assassinations and deaths, all of them had a reason when they happened, and we can't truly understand them if we ignore those reasons." Her voice grew soft, distant, and Sam glanced at the window but she wasn't looking at anything her could see. "It's not just a long list of names and dates. It's a sequence of causes and effects, people doing what they think is best with what they know, people who perhaps don't even know what they're doing at the time. That's what history is, Sam."

Sam nodded, not sure what she expected him to say.

She turned her head quickly, away from the window and back toward Sam. "Well. That's all I wanted to see you about, Sam. It's a wonderful essay and I'm very pleased that you chose such a mature topic."

She held the stapled paper out to him; Sam felt a trill of happiness when he saw the bright red A+ on the top of the front page.

"I... thanks, Miss Calder." His voice cracked horribly on her name, and his face grew even hotter.

But she didn't seem to notice. She pushed her chair back and stood up. "Run along now," she said, sounding uncannily like Mrs. Wilcox for a second, stern and disapproving. "It gets dark so early these days, with winter coming."

"Yeah. See you tomorrow, Miss Calder."

Sam turned and walked over to the classroom door. Just as he reached to open it, he heard her rapid footsteps behind him. He caught a whiff of peppermint on her breath, saw a flash of movement from the corner of his eye. There was something in her hand, something bright red.

He spun around, opened his mouth, had time for half a thought -- _Dean's gonna be pissed_ \-- before the apple paperweight swung down and everything went dark.

~

When he woke up, he thought he was blind.

Sam opened his eyes but couldn't see anything. He blinked rapidly, turned his head from side to side, tried to bring his hands up to rub his eyes. Something stopped him: a chain rattled and cold metal bit into the skin of his wrists.

_What--_

And there was something in his mouth. He jerked his head sharply to one side, scraping his face against his arm; it was a strip of cloth, tied around the back of his neck and cutting painfully into his cheeks, rough and damp on the bare skin of his shoulder.

His clothes were gone. Not just his shirt, all of them, and the floor below him, the wall behind him, they were coarse, gritty, like cement that hadn't been swept in years. He was sitting upright, his back against the wall and his legs stuck out before him, his wrists bound together and fastened to a very short chain, no more than six inches long, bolted to the floor between his legs.

Suddenly Sam couldn't get enough air through his nose. His heart was racing and he was sweating; the cement was cool but the air was hot, damp like a sauna, with a thick musty smell that made him choke. Dust and grime and mold and -- and something else, something he recognized. He began to shake his head, closed his eyes even though it made no difference. There was no mistaking that smell.

There was something dead, there in the dark. Something dead and rotting.

Trying not to breathe, not to smell it, he struggled ineffectually against the shackles around his wrists. Sam felt along the short length of chain and around the flat metal plate in the floor, tugged and tried to pry it loose until his nails were torn and his fingers were aching and raw.

It could be anything. Could be an animal. Maybe a rat.

The shackles were too small for him to slip his hands out; the bolt in the floor didn't budge. Sam tried to stand up, curling his legs under himself and pushing up against the wall, tugging so hard pain splintered through his back and arms and he thought for a second he'd dislocated one of his shoulders. He cried out, a pathetic and muffled sound behind the gag, and slumped back to the floor in frustration.

Dead things all smell the same. Just from the smell, you couldn't tell.

Sam sat down again. There was no comfortable position, but with his back to the wall and his legs before him, just like he'd woken up, at least it didn't hurt.

It could be anything. One time Dad had been so sure they'd find the bodies of these missing women in an abandoned root cellar, and it turned out to be nothing more than a pronghorn that had fallen through the rotten roof and broken its legs.

Tears stung his eyes and the back of his throat burned. Sam leaned his head back against the rough cement, concentrated on breathing slowly and evenly. He wasn't going to cry. He had to think. He had to think about what Dad or Dean would do. Figure out a plan. That was all. Dean would know something was wrong when Sam didn't meet him outside the school.

He knew it was wasn't a rat, the dead thing in the darkness. He knew it was Adam and Melissa.

Or maybe Dean wouldn't suspect anything at all. Maybe he would just think Sam had walked home without waiting for him, like he did sometimes when he didn't want to be treated like a baby. Maybe Dean would think that Sam had gone to Kendall or Bryan's house. Maybe Sam wasn't even in the school anymore; Miss Calder could have taken him miles away.

Maybe Dean wouldn't even care that Sam was late. Maybe he'd forgotten to come pick up Sam at all. He was always saying he had better things to do than be a goddamned babysitter.

Sam squeezed his eyes shut. He had to think. He needed a plan.

~

He thought his eyes were playing tricks on him when he first saw the light.

He didn't know how long he had been there, but it was long enough that he was starting to feel hungry and tired and -- it was so _stupid_, but he couldn't help it -- even a little bit bored.

For a long time, nothing happened, nothing except a huge boiler or furnace rumbling to life somewhere in the darkness. The sudden racket nearly scared Sam out of his skin, but once he figured out what it was he felt a pang of relief. That explained why it was so hot, and while he had no way of knowing for sure, he suspected it meant he was probably still in the school. There was a locked door to the school basement right next to Miss Calder's classroom; he and Kendall and Bryan sometimes played around with trying to open it before class, making challenges and dares none of them intended to follow through. Sam never told them that he could probably pick the lock in about thirty seconds, even though sometimes he really wanted to. He knew they would think it was cool.

He didn't know how big the room was. One moment it felt huge and cavernous, the next he was certain it was no bigger than a closet.

He tried not to think about the walls and ceiling close on every side, or about how Adam and Melissa might be just out of reach on the floor beside him, slumped against the walls in chains of their own.

When the furnace fell quiet, the silence was so surprising a few moments passed before Sam realized that he could hear something else. There was a soft scraping -- he couldn't tell exactly what it was, or where it was coming from -- then it stopped, and he heard the clatter of metal on concrete.

A second later, there were footsteps.

Sam held his breath and looked around frantically.

He expected to see some light, but when he did it wasn't where he thought it would be. Instead of shining through a doorway or a crack, the soft yellow glow seemed to be coming from the floor.

As the glow grew stronger, Sam realized that was exactly what was happening: there was a hole in the floor, and in it a flickering orange flame was getting brighter with every second. He heard a metallic creak -- _a ladder,_ he thought -- and his heart began to race as he waited for something -- _her_ \-- to emerge from the hole.

A hand reached out first, setting a fat white candle on the floor. The flame was small, but it illuminated the room well enough for Sam to finally see his surroundings. It looked like a storeroom: one closed door to his right, old boxes and crates stacked around the walls, pipes and wires crisscrossing the ceiling. Sam's clothes and backpack were in a pile by the door. On the wall directly opposite him, some of the boxes have been moved aside to let the trapdoor in the floor open.

Miss Calder climbed slowly into the room. She stood up straight, brushed dust off her jeans, and looked down at Sam. He drew his legs up and tried to cover himself as she walked forward.

"I'm glad you're awake, Sam," Miss Calder said. She crouched beside him and tilted her head to one side; her voice was calm, relaxed, friendly. "I don't want you to be scared. You haven't done anything wrong."

Sam stared at her in confusion, but when he tried to speak, his words muffled by the gag, Miss Calder shook her head and put her finger to her lips.

"No, no," she said. "I know it's difficult to understand, but this is the way it has to be. I've been waiting for you a long time, you know. Longer than any of the others. Sometimes it's hard for me to know--" She broke off abruptly and smiled, her face sharp and her eyes wide in the candlelight. With one hand she reached out and ran a single finger down the center of his chest. Sam flinched away from her touch, shaking his head and trying awkwardly to kick her away. "It's just that you look so normal," she went on thoughtfully, ignoring Sam's squirming. "I can see you so very clearly in my dreams, but it just isn't the same in person. In person--" She pressed her fingernail into his chest, hard enough to sting but not to break the skin. "In person, you look so _human_. All of you, you always do, even on the inside."

Sam twisted suddenly, drew one leg up and kicked wildly, wrenching his shoulders and tearing the skin of his wrists as he pulled against the shackles. His foot caught her knee and she stumbled backward, throwing her hands behind her to break her fall. She scrambled to her feet and stepped hurriedly out of his reach.

"That isn't a good idea," she said gently, like she was correcting a wrong answer in class.

Sam continued to struggle, ignoring the pain in his arms, shouting threats against the gag -- _my dad's going to kill you, I'm going to kill you, Dean's going to find me, you can't do this, you can't_ \-- but none of it sounded like words. Tears blurred his vision and she was no more than a dark, formless shape looming over him, tall and still, backlit by golden candlelight.

"This is the way it has to be," Miss Calder said. "I know what you're capable of. That's why I'm doing this, Sam. That's why I've always done this, for more years than you can count. I knew how Adam would grow up -- he was going to kill people, you see. And Melissa, she was worse, because everybody would think she was such a good mother until they learned the truth. And you." Miss Calder sighed, and for a moment Sam thought she was going to lean down to touch him again. "I don't hate you, Sam. You must understand that. I know you understand it. You're a very good student. You wrote it in your essay: sometimes just one small thing can change the entire course of history. And sometimes that one thing is a person."

He began to shake his head, his nonsense threats changing to pleas -- _no, no, I won't do anything wrong, please, I promise_ \-- but she ignored him.

"Perhaps you don't even know yourself, yet, but someday you will do things. Terrible, unnatural things." She sighed and shook her head, looking down at him sadly. "I've seen it, and I can't let that happen.

Miss Calder turned around and climbed back through the trapdoor. She took the candle with her, leaving Sam in darkness.

~

He couldn't stop crying. He knew that he needed to calm down, to concentrate, to make himself _think_, but the tears kept falling and he exhaled choking half-sobs every time he took a breath.

The furnace roared to life again, and Sam wondered what time it was. Surely Dean would have noticed by now that Sam wasn't anywhere he was supposed to be.

But maybe Dean wouldn't care. He was always complaining about how he had to stay behind and watch Sam while Dad went hunting. Sam knew that he hated being a babysitter, that he would rather be out killing things than stuck at home making mac and cheese and doing laundry and picking Sam up after school. He hated sharing a room with Sam, having to turn down his music when Sam was doing homework, spending hours after school making Sam practice shooting and bow-hunting and sparring because Dad always ran out of patience. That's not what other seventeen-year-olds did. Bryan's older sister was in Dean's class, and she and her friends made no secret of the fact that they thought he was a creepy loner freak. Whenever she said anything Sam laughed and agreed and tried to pretend he wasn't almost sick with embarrassment.

When the furnace switched off again, Sam could still hear Miss Calder through the opening in the floor, scraping and scratching. He tried to imagine what was under that trapdoor. Maybe it was a dirt cellar, like the one under Kendall's house where they hung out on hot days. Maybe she was digging.

Maybe she had already buried Adam and Melissa down there, and now she was digging a third grave. It seemed like a long time to dig a grave, but maybe the dirt was hard and Miss Calder didn't have as much practice at it as Dad did.

Sam wished she had left the candle for him.

He squeezed his eyes shut. His wrists hurt from struggling against the metal bands, stinging and scraping every time he moved, and his arms and legs were beginning to go numb.

Something rattled in the darkness, and his eyes snapped open. He still couldn't see anything -- there was no light coming through the hole in the floor -- so he held his breath and listened, wondering if he had imagined it.

No; there it was again. A persistent rattle somewhere across the room, almost like--

_The doorknob._

Sam tried to cry out; it was more a whimper than a shout, but the rattling stopped. Then there was a quiet, rasping and scraping sound that Sam would recognize anywhere: somebody was picking the lock.

The door clicked open and the beam of a flashlight blinded him.

"Sammy?"

Relief exploded in his chest like fireworks. Before Sam could even respond Dean was kneeling beside him, dropping the flashlight and a crow bar to the floor with a clatter, grabbing Sam's head roughly and pulling the gag from his mouth. He began to pat Sam all over, checking him for injuries like Dad did after hunting or practice, except Dean's hands were rough, unsteady.

"Are you okay? Jesus, Sammy, fuck -- you're bleeding, your head is bleeding, who the hell did this--"

Sam shook his head, his heart pounding so hard it hurt. Dean was whispering, but it sounded deafening to Sam's ears.

"She's still here!" he hissed, cutting Dean off.

Dean went completely still. "Where?"

Sam pointed with his bound hands and jerked his head toward the trapdoor. "Down."

Picking up the flashlight, Dean stood and crossed the room in three quick steps and knelt beside the hole in the floor. He didn't shine the flashlight into the hole, but he leaned down and peered into it, sinking his whole head into the dark gap. Then he stood up again and came back to Sam.

"There's a tunnel," he said quietly. He put the flashlight on the floor, pulled a Swiss Army knife out of his pocket, and went to work picking open the manacles around Sam's wrists. His hands were shaking and his voice sounded strained, but he went on without hesitation. "Twenty, thirty feet long, with a light at the end. What's she doing?"

Sam shook his head. "I dunno. She killed Adam and Melissa."

Fresh tears sprung into his eyes, and he felt sobs gathering in his throat again. The locks on the manacles clicked open; Sam shoved them off his wrists and threw his arms around Dean's neck, burying his face in Dean's shoulder.

Dean froze in surprise, then brought his arms up and wrapped Sam in a tight hug. "It's okay, Sammy," he whispered. "You're safe now. Looked all over the fucking school for you, dude, but you're safe now." He pulled away slowly, brushed Sam's hair back from his eyes. Dean's voice was low and gruff, the voice he used when he was trying to sound like Dad, older and more certain than he actually was. "Okay? Let's get your clothes and get the hell out of here."

Sam nodded slowly and wiped his nose on his arm; in the faint light of the flashlight he could see the rings the manacles had rubbed raw around his wrists. Dean brought his clothes over to him, then picked up the crowbar and walked quietly over to the open trapdoor.

"Dean." Sam felt new quiver of fear in his gut. He started to stand up, but his legs felt like rubber and he wasn't sure they would hold him. "What are you doing?"

"Does she have a gun?" Dean asked.

"Dean, don't. We have to leave--"

"How is she armed? What did she hit you with?"

"Dean--"

"Sam!" Dean didn't raise his voice above a whisper, but he glanced over his shoulder, glaring at Sam. "What did she hit you with?"

"I -- a paperweight. From her desk. I don't know what else she has."

"Okay. I'll be right back."

"Don't go--"

"Get dressed, Sammy. Be ready in case she comes up."

"Please, Dean, don't go down there, don't leave--"

But Dean was already climbing into the hole, crowbar in hand. Miss Calder had made noise on the ladder and when she walked along the tunnel, but Dean moved in perfect silence and Sam couldn't hear anything at all.

Dean had left him the flashlight, though, so he dressed quickly and crept over to the trapdoor. He leaned just as Dean had before, bending until he could see the tunnel and the glow of candlelight at the end. A shadow blocked the light for a second -- _Dean_ \-- and Sam's heart leapt into his throat.

He couldn't watch. Even if he could see anything, he couldn't. He sat back quickly and hugged his legs to his chest, listening and waiting.

He heard somebody speak, but he couldn't tell if it was Dean or Miss Calder. There was a scuffle, quick movements on loose dirt, and a voice that was definitely Miss Calder's raised in a shout -- then quickly cut off.

And silence.

Sam waited, counting slowly to himself. When he got to one hundred, he decided, he would go down. Dean might need his help, and he couldn't just sit here--

Footsteps along the tunnel.

"Sammy?"

"Dean!"

"Yeah. It's okay. I'm coming up now."

Sam scrambled to his feet and waited for Dean to climb out. "What happened?"

Instead of answering, Dean pulled the heavy metal trapdoor and slammed it over the opening. There was a rusted bolt on the outside of the door, and Dean slid it into place, then stood back looked around thoughtfully. "Okay, we need to cover it up now," he said.

"But -- shouldn't we call the police?"

"No." Dean didn't look at him; he began to drag one of the larger boxes over the trapdoor. "Help me move these boxes back -- it's looks like they covered it originally."

"But why can't we--"

"Goddammit, Sam, just do what I say! This isn't -- the police can't do anything about this."

"But Adam and Melissa--"

"Aren't down there. Not anymore."

Dean was busy moving boxes, refusing to look at Sam, and Sam couldn't tell if he was lying.

"Dean--"

_What did you do?_

But Sam swallowed the question and set to work. They covered the trapdoor with boxes, doing their best to make the piles look like they'd been there gathering dust for years. Dean tried to use the crowbar to pry the plate that held the manacles out of the floor, but all he could manage was to snap the chain at the last link.

He handed the cuffs and the crowbar to Sam, and while Dean moved the last few boxes, Sam surreptitiously ran his fingers along the length of the crowbar. No wetness, nothing sticky. He swept the flashlight over it quickly to be sure: no blood.

"She didn't bleed."

Sam started and looked up guiltily; Dean was staring at him, his expression unreadable.

"Maybe she was alive once, but now--" Dean shook his head and shrugged. He reached out for the flashlight, and Sam saw that his hand was trembling. "Let's get out of here."

~

Outside the school, the night air was cold and crisp. Sam began shivering immediately, and Dean paused to shrug off his jacket and hand it to Sam before unlocking the car.

Sam sunk into the passenger seat and waited while Dean climbed in and started the engine. The jacket was warm, comforting; he huddled down in the familiar scents of leather and Dean, but he couldn't stop shaking.

"How did you--" He stopped to get control of his voice and keep his teeth from chattering. "How did you find me?"

Dean glanced at him quickly, then twisted in his seat to pull something out of his pocket. He passed it over to Sam; it was Sam's essay, with Miss Calder's notes and the bright red A+ at the top.

"Looked all over the fucking school," Dean said after a second. He put the car in gear, switched on the headlights. "Found that on the floor outside the door to the basement. You must've dropped it."

Sam put the essay down on the seat between them and swallowed painfully. He didn't want to touch it, didn't even want to look at it.

He considered and discarded a dozen question -- why it had taken Dean so long, whether he had known something was wrong or if he'd thought Sam was just messing around, what he had seen down in the tunnel and what Miss Calder had said, if he knew what Miss Calder was, why there was even a tunnel beneath the school basement to begin with -- but he only said, "Yeah, I must've."

Dean didn't say anything. They drove in silence for several minutes, winding through the neighborhood toward Caleb's house. It couldn't be that late, Sam thought, peering through the windshield at the houses they passed. Lights were still on, families were still sitting down to dinner behind wide dining room windows, cars were still turning onto driveways and garage doors were still opening to welcome them. It never seemed right to Sam, that Caleb should live in such a normal neighborhood. Neighborhoods like this were for doctors and lawyers and their families, for people who went to work in the morning and came home from work at night, who went to sleep without rock salt lining the doors and windows and never kept knives under their pillows. He wondered if Caleb's neighbors ever suspected anything, ever thought, even for a moment, that his basement was full of weapons and the people who stopped by from time to time were usually just pausing on their way between killing one thing and hunting another.

"Did she--" Dean stopped, cleared his throat.

Sam looked over at him. Dean was staring straight ahead, both hands clenching the steering wheel, his jaw set and his eyes hard.

"Did she -- hurt you?"

Sam reached up gingerly and touched the back of his head. His hair was sticky with blood from where she had hit him and it hurt like hell, but he'd had worse. "Not really," he said. "I don't think I have a concussion."

"I mean -- your clothes, did she--"

"Oh!" Understanding dawned, and Sam shook his head emphatically. "No. She didn't -- she didn't do anything. She just -- just talked."

"Talked?" Dean sounded surprised. "What about?"

Sam bit his lip and hesitated. He should tell Dean, he thought. He should tell him what Miss Calder had said, about seeing and dreaming, about knowing what people would do.

He should tell Dean. Dean would know what it meant.

But Sam only inhaled slowly and replied, keeping his voice as casual as he could, "Nothing. Nothing important. Just... you know, crazy stuff."

"She didn't say anything about--"

"No. I swear. It was just -- nothing that made sense. Just -- she was crazy."

Dean looked at him then, finally. "It's okay, Sammy. I believe you."

They didn't speak again until they pulled into the driveway outside Caleb's house.

As they walked up to the front porch, Sam felt a sudden, renewed surge of fear. He stopped short just outside the door, his heart pounding.

Dean put a hand on his shoulder. "Go on upstairs," he said quietly. "I'll talk to Caleb."

Sam nodded gratefully and hurried past Dean, rushing up the stairs and into the bathroom. He slammed the door behind him.

~

The next morning the phone rang before school.

Sam flinched with surprise when Dad's voice boomed in his ear.

"Sammy! How are things going?"

Dad had called just two days ago, but Sam couldn't remember where he was or what he was doing. He sounded ridiculously nearby, too loud and too energetic, almost unreal.

"Sammy?"

"Dad. Hi."

"Are you okay, son?"

"I'm -- yeah. Yeah, I'm fine."

Dad sounded skeptical. "You sound a little down. Something going on?"

"No, it's just--" Sam closed his eyes. He heard footsteps behind him and knew that it was Caleb, hesitating in the kitchen doorway.

"Everything okay at school?"

Suddenly Sam couldn't breathe. His eyes were burning and his lungs ached; he turned around and shoved the phone at Caleb and pushed by him, shoving open the back door and stumbling onto the back porch. The morning air was like a shock, and he stood for several seconds gasping in the cold, struggling not to be sick.

_Terrible things_, she'd said. _Someday_.

He hadn't told Dean. He hadn't told Caleb. She was crazy. There was no reason to tell them what she'd said. There was no reason to make them wonder.

His breath puffed before him in short hot bursts and there was frost on the grass. The first frost, Sam thought, after a moment of confusion. It must be the first frost. It was almost Halloween. Sam hated Halloween. He hated his father's empty eyes and whiskey breath; he hated the way Dean spent the days leading up to it pretending everything was alright; he hated the leering pumpkins and plastic skeletons and the way all the other kids dressed up like monsters with fake blood and claws and ugly masks and thought it was fun.

_It's just that you look so normal._

But she was crazy. She was a killer and she wasn't even human and now she was dead. Dean had killed her.

Sam wondered if he'd ever have the courage to ask Dean what he had seen at the end of that tunnel.

He sank down on the porch step, hugging his arms around himself as he began to shiver.

There was no way she could know what Sam was going to do in the future, years or decades down the line. She was crazy.

"Crazy," he muttered.

There was no sense in worrying about it anymore.

He sat there, not worrying about it, not thinking about it, not remembering her words, until the back door opened and Caleb said hesitantly, "Sam? Come talk to your father."

Sam stood up, nodded, and went back inside.


End file.
